Italy
by cactuswriter
Summary: One-Shot. I'm not gonna do a summary, because it's just a one-shot...so enjoy. Haha. X)


Italy

Lucy is so full of the town, the bright festival of a new year. She unwraps the scarf around her neck, because it's getting warm in the train. She holds the fountain pen tentatively in her hand, listening to the thick tongue of a native language. The small pouch by her side is full of little trinkets and souvenirs. She smiles up at the little girls on the seat across her, giggling into the hands and speaking of jokes that Lucy doesn't and will never understand. The girls are young, in little skirts too indecent for the biting weather and padded jackets that are zipped up to their necks.

"_Dove si trova il__treno__in direzione__?_" Lucy hears the girl ask fervently.

The other girl mutters her answer, and they recline in their seats, comfortably at rest. Lucy looks out the window, where tiny droplets of moisture has gathered and remained, and at the train station outside. Commuters are boarding and family and friends continue to wave goodbye. Lucy turns back to the notepad she has purchased in one of the stalls at the festival, lightly caressing the edges of the worn-out paper, just as how she likes it. It has a distinct scent, one of a lovely nostalgic smell. It smells like bacon sizzling in the old Pevensie house, and the browned paper Peter likes to use at the table. It smells a lot like Susan's old perfume when she was in boarding school, and the old unmade sheets of her room.

It's like watching black-and-white movies at the cinema.

It feels bittersweet, fresh like light drizzles and blue like downpour.

Lucy braces herself again, her elbows digging into her laps as she positions herself in whichever way possible, to write nicely and neatly. Susan always praised her of her curvy handwriting, the one Edmund has tried to attempt many times but end up failing.

She still recalls, with a fond smile at that, a lovely summer evening when the foliage is thick and green and the air hot and humid, witnessing Peter's and Susan's love for each other, enveloped in breaths that matched the season. When night descended and the air smelling somewhat spicy and tropical, Lucy burrows beneath the blankets and tugs at Susan's arm, her head peeking out of the blankets and at the visible crimson on Susan's cheeks. It was such a lovely colour on pale white. Susan's collarbones are rising and falling with each breath and the nightgown did little to conceal Susan's fleshiness.

"What does it feel like?" Lucy whispers and Susan's eyes open.

"What does what feel like, Lucy?"

"Being in love."

Susan's eyes widen a little at the innocent question. But Lucy had been young and naïve, and this had been before the war, when people loved freely and lived meaningfully.

Susan turns to Lucy's side, her hand slipping underneath her head and speaking to Lucy in such low volumes that makes the night seem loud and wild. Lucy listens, wide-eyed in wonder, of how an intangible substance that makes girls blush and boys kneel truly exists in the world.

"I want that," says Lucy, and Susan pats her hand.

"Don't worry, Luce, you'll get it, if not better."

Lucy's mind drifts back to the other Pevensie male, and hands creep up to her cheeks to hide the crimson.

And then the war began, and the two Pevensie males have been forced to enlist. They left as boys, and returned as men. Lucy remembers their departure clearly, with traces of disillusionment, when Susan puts her arms around Peter's neck and kisses him goodbye, the kiss brief but lingering. And then Edmund stands with the rucksack of his belongings and Lucy had not yet forgotten the look of his face nor the words he told her last before leaving.

"_Where is the train heading to, Lucy?_"

His face is helpless when Lucy pulls him into an embrace warmer than summer mornings and yet colder than winter nights. His arms don't draw up immediately, but they do slowly, tentatively, with Lucy pressing soft, gentle words into his shoulder.

"_I'll see you again._"

He nods and looks to her. "_I promise to write whenever I can._"

Lucy remembers shedding no tears when the Pevensie boys leave, repelling any other thought except for the boys' promised return.

Peter comes back in the midst of the war, hobbling on one foot and unsteady on the other. He looks pale, emaciated, with ghostly eyes that scares Lucy and makes fear for Edmund, whom Peter has last heard to be still fighting at the Northwest border of the warzone, far away from his relocated camp. Susan holds him dear in her arms, because he looks so fragile. She tenderly kisses his discoloured skin and puts him to bed, turning to Lucy. Her eyes expressed soft pity, but otherwise, Lucy felt compelled to demand why Edmund could not return instead.

Peter had an injury and when he was no longer of any use out on field, they sent him back.

It sounds so easy, but it's not, because Lucy hears the moans and groans of his injury, and Susan stirring in bed to comfort him.

Lucy sleeps alone most of the time, and when Susan told her that she needs to be by Peter's side, she really didn't care.

Why does her sister have Peter when she couldn't have Edmund?

A few weeks passes, then a full month, and no news yet, until the local postman appears on the Pevensie doorstep, giving out letters on his bicycle. He tips his hat and cycles away, as Lucy stands with a stack of letters grasped tightly in her hand.

The letters vary in paper, sometimes a full piece, sometimes just scraps with little stains and creases in the corners. The amount of stamps varies as well, and they come in the same 'God bless the queen' imprints.

Some are bills, but a few are from Edmund.

Lucy recalls reading them at night and feeling Edmund next to her. It gives her more hope to go on waiting, but then the letters just stopped one day.

Lucy had asked the postman if there was anything else. To that, the postman said no, tipped his hat and cycled away.

A few days later, a letter arrived, stating simply that Edmund had been killed in action. It came with a medal and everything, but Lucy put it away in the drawer and never looked at it again.

Peter looks like he'd already expected it and Susan only cries for the loss of a brother, when Lucy cries for the loss of a lover.

Lucy left to Italy soon after, dealing with loss fairly, by writing letters to Edmund from all over the world. That's why Lucy sits in the train, looking for the right words to write and mouthing words she can't spell, spending most of her savings on little souvenirs and stamps and paper to write on.

She's not sure where the train is heading now, and she only writes and writes, sending them back to the old Pevensie house.

It's considerably darker now, and most of the commuters are asleep, but the two girls across her seat are not, just silent and looking out the window now, destination unknown and unclear in their minds.

Lucy looks up from her finished letter and folds it into a letter, pasting two stamps and carefully putting it away into her pouch.

Lucy leans forward and whispers to the two girls, "_Dove si trova il__treno__in direzione__?_"

One of the girls looks strangely at her, smiling a knowing, small smile.

"Back home."


End file.
